


Wearing Your Colours

by apolesen



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Ficlet, Gay Pride, Gay Rights, Gen, Homophobia, Legacy of Elim Garak, Mention of characters being dead but way in the past, Post-Canon, pride month fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 05:26:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apolesen/pseuds/apolesen
Summary: Many years after the castellanship of Elim Garak, a young man finds the courage to wear a pin of his hero in an unusual colour scheme.





	Wearing Your Colours

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a celebration of Pride month. 
> 
> Trigger warnings: homophobic parents, mention of legal homophobia, mention of major characters being dead (but with no details given, and the deaths are implied to be quite some time in the past).

Alon Mesat was almost through the front-door when his mother spoke. 

‘Where are you off to?’ 

He jumped at her voice. Then, pulling himself together, he looked over his shoulder. Mother had made it halfway into the hallway without him hearing. 

‘To the _geleta_ ,’ Alon said. ‘I’m seeing Ziral.’ 

As soon as he spoke, he heard his father rising. By the end of the sentence, he was in the hallway too. 

‘I thought you said Ziral was on a hike with that organisation of hers,’ father said. ‘The – uh, Cardassian guides.’

‘She’s back,’ Alon said quickly, reminding himself that he needed to stop telling his parents these things. It might fill the silence, but it clearly undermined his lies. ‘I’ll be back for dinner. Bye!’ 

He had almost turned back to unlock the door when his father said: 

‘Wait a second!’ 

Reluctantly, Alon let his hand fall from the door panel. Even if his father had said nothing more, he knew that he had been caught. He turned to fall him. 

‘Yeah?’ 

‘What is that?’ father asked, pointing at his jacket. ‘That pin thing?’ 

Mother looked at the enamel pin on Alon’s jacket, then at her husband.

‘It’s Castellan Garak,’ she said. 

‘Yes I see _that_ ,’ father said. ‘But why does it look like that? Those…’ He waved his hand at it. ‘…Colours.’ 

Alon had hoped it would not come to this. He had thought he could get out of the apartment without them noticing. It would be easier to explain it if he had built up the courage by wearing it in public a few times. Why had he not thought of keeping the pin in his pocket and then putting it on when he had left the house? But no, this was important. He took a deep breath. He would stand his ground. 

‘It’s a rainbow. It’s Federation symbolism. Earth, I think.’ 

His father frowned. 

‘What does it mean?’ 

Alon pushed aside the urge to mumble or lie. 

‘It’s a philandrist thing.’ 

His parents’ eyes grew, and father’s mouth widened in an odd grimace that would have been funny if it had been any other time. 

‘You can’t go out wearing that!’

Alon crossed his arms. 

‘Why not?’ he said. ‘It’s a free society.’ 

‘That is slander, young man!’ 

His caution and fear was gone now. Instead, he felt angry. 

‘How is it slander? Slander is spoken, you know. Besides, it’s not like I’m saying anything bad about him!’

‘You’re saying Elim Garak was a philandrist!’ 

‘It’s not illegal anymore.’ 

‘It damned well should be. At least making those kinds of – maligning pins. One of the greatest statesmen of post-Fire Cardassia…’ 

‘Oh wake up, dad! He was totally a philandrist.’ 

‘How do you know that?’ mother snapped. 

‘I’ve been reading about him!’ 

‘That book you’ve been going on about?’ father said. ‘It’s not an authorised biography!’ 

‘And that is why it can tell the truth!’ Alon said. ‘Because some state historian won’t dare to include that kind of thing, because people like you who think being a philandrist is a bad thing!’

‘Fine!’ father exclaimed, in a tone that made it clear that it wasn’t. ‘Where's your proof?’ 

‘He lived together with another man the last half of his life.’ 

‘That was his personal physician,’ mother said. ‘He was an important man – after what happened to Castellan Ghemor, it was a necessary precaution…’ 

Alon let the mention of his famous namesake pass. He was pretty sure Alon Ghemor was a philandrist too – damn, their entire democracy seemed to be founded by them. Not a bad feat for a bunch of deviants. 

‘It wasn’t just that, mum. They lived out their lives together. They were buried next to each other.’ 

‘And where is your proof that they…’ Father made a grimace at the thought. ‘…Did those kinds of things to one another?’ 

‘Are you saying that because we don’t have pictures of them fucking they can’t have been a couple?’ Alon asked. The look of shock on his parents’ faces did not slow him down.‘Why is it so hard for you to even entertain the possibility that he loved men? The old laws against it are gone! It’s not a bad thing to fall in love with someone of the same gender! So why can’t you and people like you not just accept that? The Federation is fine with it – they even let people marry whoever they want.’ 

‘We’re _not_ the Federation!’

‘We could be,’ Alon bit back. ‘We _should_ be, even.’ 

Father made a sound not unlike a hound trying to get rid of a fur-ball. 

‘I don’t know where you’ve gotten these dangerous ideas from, Alon, but I am going to talk to your teachers, and you are grounded.’ 

‘Too bad,’ Alon said and pressed the door-panel. ‘See you later.’ 

Giving his jacket a final tug, he stepped outside. He descended the stairs three steps at a time, ignoring his parents shouting after him. Well out of the house, he run for two blocks to make sure they would not catch up. It was just a precaution – however angry they were, they would not continue the fight in public. They would pick up where they had left off once he got home, but right now, that felt far away. He had a date, and for the first time, he had dared to wear his colours out in public. 

Alon rubbed the enamel pin with his sleeve to give it some extra shine. The colours of the rainbow that tinted the face of Elim Garak sparkled in the sun. However much he had read about the man, Alon did not know how he would feel about being an icon. He would either have found it hilarious or vulgar. Whichever it was, he had become a posthumous symbol that meant something to those like him. Times were changing, and people like Alon’s parents should not get to decide what was acceptable or not anymore. It would not be a revolution, but a slow grind where minds were gradually changed. Perhaps his hero would see the beauty of that, changing Cardassian society both in his lifetime and after it. 

‘Come on, Castellan,’ Alon said. ‘Let’s go make you proud.’


End file.
